


That's a mouse

by LesbianDragon_LD



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: "El the mouse is more afraid of you than you are of it", Edeleth, F/F, in which El should have listened to Byleth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-14 23:10:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21023789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LesbianDragon_LD/pseuds/LesbianDragon_LD
Summary: Byleth likes mice. Edelgard doesn't.





	That's a mouse

**Author's Note:**

> I know El's fear of rats has a dark origin but I still think her convo with Byleth is adorable, especially with the "that was a cute shriek" options, so naturally I had to write something based on it.  
Sorry not sorry.

Before the first sun rays of light filled their room, Byleth woke up. Just as she had done every day since a few days ago, she carefully and quietly shifted on the bed to get up. She headed for the wardrobe, opening it to take her clothes out while occasionally glancing back to her wife, making sure she was still sleeping soundly on their bed. As she saw her wife’s body unmoving under the covers, Byleth assumed it was safe to continue.  
She quietly got dressed and headed out for the room’s door, as silently as she could, tiptoeing and holding her heavy boots in her hands so that her wife wouldn’t hear her heels hit the floor as she left.  
Byleth reached the door, yet before she could open it and leave, she heard a familiar voice call her out;

“Sneaking out again?”

Byleth swallowed.

“I’m going to, uh…I need to check with the soldiers for…a thing” Byleth tried excusing herself, but her wife who was now staring intently at her instead of being asleep was having none of it.

“You’re a terrible liar, love” Edelgard lazily commented, still sleepy and still laying down on the bed. 

Defeated, Byleth went back to bed, laying down next to Edelgard before she apologized to her wife.

“Why all the secrecy? What are you even doing every morning?” Edelgard yawned, and Byleth could only reply that it was something she didn’t want to know.  
Edelgard eyed her wife with curiosity, and a slight feeling of dread.

“Are you cheating on me?”

“No, El.”

“Are you tormenting Hubert?”

“No, El.”

“Are you killing people or doing anything bad to citizens?”

“No, El.”

“Are you even doing anything slightly immoral or illegal, or both?”

“No, El, it’s not immoral, nor illegal.”

Edelgard sighed in relief. But her relief was short lived as something else occurred to her.

“Byleth…” she started, her voice serious “…is anyone doing something bad to you? If anyone has hurt you, you know I’ll cut them down-“

Byleth moved closer to her, her lips pressing against her wife’s to shush her before she could finish. When she broke the short kiss, Byleth pulled away to hold her wife’s hands as she stared into her eyes, assuring her she was telling the truth.

“El, I promise it’s nothing. It really is something innocent, but something you don’t want to know. Just trust me on this, alright?”

Edelgard nodded in defeat, and her wife kissed her again before putting on her boots and excitedly darting out the door, yet not before telling Edelgard to rest easy and promising to return by breakfast. But as Byleth left the room for good, Edelgard couldn’t help feeling sad.  
She trusted her wife, but she also couldn’t imagine what it was that her wife so desperately didn’t want to share with her. It made her uncomfortable, even if deep down she knew Byleth was most likely being truthful and not doing anything wrong.  
She felt bad for it, but she simply had to know what she was doing one way or another.  
And so, for the first time since she had noticed her wife’s daily escapades, she decided to silently follow.  
Edelgard quickly got dressed and headed out after her wife.  
As she left the room, she asked the soldiers and servants who were already up and working if they had seen her wife, and after some admitted to seeing her walk around here and there, she eventually came to find Byleth on a room in the palace that was practically unused.  
It was a smaller and older room that merely served as a sort of storeroom, with a mere single table inside and filled to the brim with all sorts of supplies.  
Edelgard peeked inside through a door crack, and watched silently as Byleth seemed to hunch over the table. She couldn’t see what she was doing, but she was sure she heard her wife’s voice talking. And yet, she saw no one else in the room.  
Concerned, Edelgard wondered if her wife had gone mad. Did she have imaginary friends? Or had Sothis come back? But she knew that last thought wasn’t possible. Perhaps she was praying then? Or talking to the dead? But why would she pray or talk to the dead inside an old storeroom of all places?  
Edelgard couldn’t take it anymore.  
This was absurd, Byleth was her wife. There shouldn’t be secrets between them.  
So she blew her cover and stepped inside, calling her wife.  
Byleth shrieked, as Edelgard had never heard her shriek before, and she was quick to hide whatever she held in her hands behind her back.

“Byleth I love you, but I’m concerned. You’ve been doing this for days, and I don’t even know what the hell it is you’re doing. Please, whatever it is, you know you can trust me and tell me! I’m dying with both worry and curiosity!” Edelgard pleaded, but Byleth merely backed up more against the table with every step forward that Edelgard took.

“El, please, you really don’t want to see them! Please just leave!” Byleth desperately pleaded, and Edelgard only became more confused.

“What? Byleth, who are you talking about? I don’t see why-“

“NO!” Byleth suddenly shouted, not at Edelgard but at something else instead.

Before Edelgard could ask what was wrong, Byleth had turned around, frantically searching for something on the table, as if she had dropped what she held behind her back onto the table and was now trying to look for it.

“Oh goodness, Byleth, what did you lose? Here, I’ll help you find it…” Edelgard told her as she too loomed over the table, next to her wife.

Before Byleth could warn her to stay away, Edelgard spotted it. And screamed, loudly. Very, very loudly.

“BYLETH, WHY IS A RAT ON THE TABLE? BYLETH, THERE IS A DAMNED RAT ON THE TABLE!”

As Edelgard shouted and backed away from the table at full speed, Byleth desperately tried to grab the small critter again while begging her wife to stop shouting as to not scare the rodent even more.  
But the animal was terrified of Edelgard’s loud voice and it kept running away from Byleth’s hands, throwing every object in its path off the table as it tried to flee.  
And Edelgard merely panicked as she dreaded the rodent jumping off the table and coming near her, but she was too petrified to open the door and flee herself.  
After what seemed like an eternity, as the creature jumped around atop the table avoiding Byleth’s grasp, Edelgard finally managed to compose herself enough to stop shouting.  
The tired animal stopped moving for a moment, and Byleth was able to catch it again, gently placing it back on a box before turning back to her wife.

“This is why I told you that you didn’t want to know” Byleth nonchalantly told her wife, only for Edelgard to turn pale.

“Why…why do you have a rat…why?” Edelgard stuttered, pointing at the box Byleth had placed it on.

“Well, she’s not a rat, she’s a mouse. They look very different. And I-“ Byleth started to explain, before her wife interrupted.

“Hold on, ‘she’? How do you even know that…that filthy thing is a she?” Edelgard asked, and Byleth awkwardly avoided her gaze.

“Oh…oh no, don’t tell me…” Edelgard cried, as she started to realize how Byleth must’ve know the mouse’s sex.

Byleth took a deep breath and sighed.

“El…please don’t scream…she has babies.”

Before Edelgard could scream again, Byleth’s hand was covering her mouth. Byleth reminded her that more shouting could scare the mouse again, and she could leap out of her box in panic. Edelgard only seemed more panicked at the thought, yet she understood she had to keep her voice down. Byleth removed her hand once she was confident her wife wouldn’t scream.

“Oh my- Oh goddess, how many are there?” Edelgard asked in horror once Byleth’s hand moved away.

Yet Byleth merely stared at her, unable to tell her.  
To Byleth’s surprise, Edelgard gathered up all her courage and slowly approached the box. She held her wife’s hand for support before she peeked inside. To her horror, Edelgard saw seven cubs sleeping soundly next to a white mouse.  
Absolutely disgusted, Edelgard pulled away so fast that she almost shoved her wife in the process. 

“Oh goddess, I think I’m going to be sick!” Edelgard whined as she ran back to the door.

Her wife followed, finding Edelgard outside the room, crouching on the floor and clutching her stomach.

“I warned you” Byleth reprehended her, “I warned you, and you didn’t listen.”

“Why are you even caring for those things?” Edelgard desperately whined again, ignoring her wife’s scolding.

“I know how you feel about them, El, but Hubert caught her in a trap and she was still alive and pregnant and…I don’t know, I couldn’t let Hubert fry her up with magic, it’s too cruel. I’m only caring for them until the babies grow enough for me to be able to release them back in the wild, far away from the palace. I’ll drop them off miles away, I promise!”

Edelgard sighed, defeated.

“I guess it’s my fault for marrying someone like you. You have a good heart and unlucky for me, no animals get under your skin, do they? Not rats, or mice or whatever…not snakes, not spiders, not cockroaches…nothing at all no matter how gross!”

Byleth thought for a moment. Eventually, she merely confirmed that she couldn’t think of a single animal that bothered her, and Edelgard couldn’t help but laugh.

“Well, at least I’m relieved you’re not doing anything bad. And it’s a good deed you’re doing, don’t get me wrong, but next time tell me what it is before I’m too curious to check on my own. I don’t want any harm to come to those…things, but I don’t want them anywhere near me. Never again.”

Byleth softly laughed before sitting down next to her wife on the floor.

“El, that was quite a cute shriek…it brings back memories…“

“Not this again! I love you, but I told you before not to call my shrieks cute! It wasn’t funny the first time, it’s not funny now!” Edelgard huffed, her face turning red from embarrassment.  
Byleth merely smiled at her and rested her head on Edelgard’s shoulder. Edelgard wrapped her arms around her wife, and Byleth did the same to her, cuddling together on the floor.

“Did you name them?” Edelgard asked after a while, and Byleth choked.

“El, I don’t think you want to know…”

“Byleth, I swear to the heavens! Don’t tell me you named them what I think you named them…”

“Well…” Byleth started, slightly embarrassed, “they’re seven so there’s Ferdinand, Caspar, Linhardt, Hubert, Bernadetta, Petra and Dorothea…”

Suddenly Byleth fell silent.

“And…?” Edelgard pressed on.

“And…” Byleth continued, defeated, “the mom is Edelgard.”

Edelgard got up, immediately removing herself from Byleth’s embrace.

“El, come on! I thought it would be funny! Eight is the perfect number!” Byleth cried out, but her wife was absolutely done.

“I warned you! Now I’m grumpy! And also, you’re not getting any love tonight!” Edelgard shouted to her wife who tried to protest, as Edelgard walked away to get her breakfast and to try to keep it in her stomach after being unable to forget the mouse’s litter.


End file.
